EXPIATION OF OFFENCES (SPEEDING OFFENCES) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 1 March 2012.)

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (10:47): The government opposes this bill. The Expiation of Offences Act 1996 currently allows a wide variety of matters to be dealt with by expiation notice, the timely payment of which means that no conviction is recorded and the penalty is a fixed sum below the maximum allowed by law.

In the words of the then attorney-general and cabinet colleague of the member for Fisher (the Hon. Trevor Griffin) when moving the original legislation, 'the system offers a premium to save trouble.' The expiation system regularly saves trouble for the police, the courts and, significantly, the alleged offender. This bill seeks to make speeding a special class of expiable offence that requires different information to be provided to the alleged offender and prevent speeding from being included on a notice with any other offence.

By way of comparison, up to three expiable offences may currently be recorded on a single notice. For example, a person may be reported for speeding, not wearing a seatbelt and failing to give way. Under this proposal, the officer would be required to complete two separate notices and spend additional time simply re-entering identical information.

The current act provides that an expiation notice must be in the prescribed form and must specify that the expiation fee is to be paid within 28 days from, and including, the date of the notice and must specify to whom the expiation fee is payable.

The prescribed form set out in the regulations already includes much of the information requested in the bill. A heading identifying the notice is issued under the Expiation of Offences Act 1996; the notice number; the date and time of the alleged offence; the name of the issuing officer; an allegation and description of a specific offence; the alleged offender's full name, address and licence details; the registration number, make, model and colour of the vehicle; the location of the alleged offence; the alleged speed of the vehicle and the speed limit; the amount of the fee and any associated levy; to whom and by when the amount must be paid.

As I advised the house in my previous contribution in relation to a similar bill that the member for Fisher has put up, the next print run for expiation notices will include the serial number and calibration date of a traffic speed analyser in the section provided to the alleged offender. This is a great example of police varying their processes in response to community feedback.

An expiation notice needs to provide sufficient information so that a person can make a reasonable decision about paying the fee or taking the matter to court. It also needs to be simple enough to be understood by people of many backgrounds and avoid unnecessary contacts to police call centres to explain confusing items. I note the current act provides significant flexibility to amend notices following feedback from the community, and this has occurred a number of times since the original legislation was passed.

Conversely, listing more required information in the act reduces the flexibility to redesign notices without having to amend the legislation, which itself can be a costly and time-consuming process. When deciding to include additional information there needs to be a balance between providing information that will help an alleged offender make an informed decision and the administrative consequences.

As this bill will increase the number of notices and the amount of information on each notice, there will also be an increase in the chance of an inadvertent error or simple difference of opinion when entering information. For example, an alleged offender may view a puddle nearby as indicating a wet road, whereas an officer may view the remaining dry surface as a dry road. Increasing the complexity of the expiation notice is also likely to increase confusion by recipients and drive up costs to respond to queries, even though the extra information may not be of practical use to the alleged offender. If a person chooses to take a matter to court then additional information is disclosed in the preparation for a hearing.

I stress that there is and must remain a clear distinction between the expiation process and an adversarial court process. The expiation process is administrative. A police officer makes an observation, comes to the view that an incident constitutes an offence and issues a notice. People may choose to pay the notice or seek to have the notice withdrawn because the offence was trifling, or for an administrative reason. There is no cost to the public in seeking a review and SAPOL conducts many thousands every year.

If a person believes that an officer acted improperly then, again with no cost, the issue may be raised with the Police Complaints Authority. However, if a person wishes to dispute the facts of an allegation, that an offence did not occur or that the police made an error, then it is appropriate for the court to make an independent judgement. This bill seeks to move that dividing line between the very different processes of the expiation system and the court system. The government is happy to continue discussions with the Hon. Dr Such and any other member of the community about improving expiation notices.

I also seek to respond to several points raised in earlier debate on this bill. With regard to members of the public being shown the speed recorded on a particular device, SAPOL advises the commissioner has issued an order for this to occur. However, some devices have a self-correct feature which causes them to automatically reset after a given period. This is a safety feature that seeks to prevent a previous reading from being applied to another vehicle. If, however, there is a delay in a vehicle being stopped, or the driver talking with the police officer, then this may prevent the speed being shown to the driver.

I also reject the assertion that the expiation system is designed to ensure a steady flow of income into the Treasury. As noted above, the expiation system sets penalties below the maximum allowed by law, so it may have the effect of reducing the income to Treasury. However, this is a deliberate feature of the current system as it balances the reduced penalty with the reduced costs for prosecution and court processes. The police commissioner has publicly stated that about one-third of expiation notices issued by individual police—that is, not camera issued—result in cautions. As such, it appears that police are exercising their discretion appropriately.

The total expiation revenue is around 15 per cent of the cost of road trauma in South Australia every year. This government established the Community Road Safety Fund in 2003 so that revenue from speeding offences is reinvested in road safety projects, and I understand more than $600 million has been used in this way to date.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.